


Introductory Period

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles settles in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introductory Period

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of two posts I have today for summer_of_giles. Many thanks to silk_labyrinth, my lovely beta! Feedback is always cherished.

_**Introductory Period (1/1)**_  
 **Title:** Introductory Period  
 **Author** : whichclothes  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Pairing:** Giles/Wesley  
 **Disclaimer** : I'm not Joss  
 **Summary** : Giles settles in  
 **Notes:** This is the first of two posts I have today for summer_of_giles. Many thanks to silk_labyrinth, my lovely beta! Feedback is always cherished.

 **  
Introductory Period   
**

“It’s not at all what I expected,” Giles said, looking about the little room in bewilderment.

“I know,” replied Wesley with a sympathetic smile. “It was the same for me.”

“It looks . . . it looks like . . .”

“Someplace familiar?”

Giles nodded. “My first flat.” He’d moved into that first place of his own when he was fresh out of university—that time with degrees in hand—and beginning his new position at the British Museum. The Council had got him the position, ostensibly to aid with his researching skills and to give the Council access to the museum’s collection, but Giles had always assumed it was also meant as a form of penance for his earlier misdeeds. In any case, he’d rather fancied the position itself and he’d let a flat just a few blocks away. The flat was just a bedsit—beneath the ground floor so he had to crane his head through the single window, looking up a small stairwell beside the building’s front entrance, to get any view of the outdoors. The furniture was third-hand at best and would have given his mother apoplexy. But he had a two-burner cooker where he could heat soup or boil water for tea, he had a stereo and his record collection, and there was a good pub just around the corner. And it was all _his_.

Now, he patted a lumpy sofa covered in an orange and brown knitted blanket, and he fancied he could still smell the familiar odors of dust, mildew, Darjeeling, and marijuana. “I’d nearly forgotten how shabby the place was,” he said softly.

Wesley nodded. “But it’s comfortable, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is.”

“I expect that’s the point—to get you accustomed slowly. It would be too big a shock otherwise. And this flat, it meant new beginnings for you, didn’t it?”

“It did.” Giles strolled to the opposite side of the room, where a slightly battered Pogues poster was tacked to the wall. He lightly traced the creases, smoothing at a small tear near one corner.Then he spun to look at Wesley. “Where did you end up? I mean at first, just after you . . .”

Wesley actually blushed a bit and ducked his head. “It’s silly.”

“As silly as that?” Giles pointed to a photo of himself in leather jacket and gel-spiked hair, slouching against a wall with a guitar in one hand and a cigarette dangling between his lips. The photo was in a plain black frame, propped on a bookshelf.

“But you were really quite—” Wesley stopped himself. “Yes, sillier than that. I found myself in a corner of a garden—the garden to my childhood house. If I ducked under some overgrown trees I would be in this bit everyone had ignored for ages, tucked up against a stone wall. There were the remains of a shed there and a mossy stone bench. When the weather permitted I would take my books and some bread and cheese and I’d spend hours there, reading or watching birds and insects and . . . I was quite young.”

Giles found himself smiling. “Small things can be delightful when we are young. Simple things.” He waved his hands about to indicate the flat in general.

“And then we grow up and life becomes complicated,” Wesley agreed. “Our expectations become grander, more complex. Our problems become deeper.”

Giles nodded. Just then, the kettle began to whistle. Odd, that. He hadn’t even noticed that the cooker was on. But he walked over and opened the overhead cupboard, where he discovered a familiar black and gold cardboard box. He took the box down and opened it, then poured some of the contents into a slightly chipped white teapot. He didn’t need to use a spoon—he could measure by sight. When he added the steaming water, the fragrance was wonderful, much stronger and headier than he recalled. After waiting for the brew to steep, he poured it into two mismatched cups. Then he took one of the cups for himself and handed the other to Wesley.

“Thank you,” Wesley said. He sniffed appreciatively at the bergamot-scented liquid.

Giles sipped, although he knew the tea was still too hot. But he was surprised to discover that he didn’t burn his tongue, and the Earl Grey tasted much better than he had remembered. He walked to the sofa and sank into the too-soft cushions. Wesley joined him and they sat silently for some time, just drinking.

At some point, Giles noticed that the room had no door. The realization didn’t alarm him, not really. “I’m not permitted to leave?” he asked.

“Oh! Of course! You can go anytime you wish. You can be anywhere. But at the beginning, most people, well, most of us prefer to take things slowly. Acclimate.”

“Did you remain in the garden a long time?”

“Ages. But eventually one wishes for more. Besides, I became lonely.” He said the last very quietly, and without looking at Giles.

“We both had loads of solitude in our lives,” Giles said. “It’s common for those in our line of work, I expect.”

Wesley nodded. “And when we tried to breach that solitude . . . well, we both lost people we cared about, didn’t we?”

“Yes, did.” Both men spent a contemplative moment. A short time later, Giles was wishing he had a biscuit to accompany his tea when he noticed a box of Jaffa cakes on the table beside him. He took one of the little pastries and handed the box to Wesley, who smiled and took two before giving the box back. Giles cleared his throat. “I heard—we received some news from America now and then, you know—I heard you died honorably.Bravely.”

“I died terrified, wishing very much that I could go on living.”

Giles shrugged. “It was fast for me. Hardly knew what happened.”

“I expect that must have been especially disorienting, then.”

“It was. But . . . I don’t feel distressed at all. Is that one of the effects of this place? That one remains preternaturally calm?”

“I believe so.”

Giles drank more tea. But then he suddenly banged the cup down onto the side table and leapt to his feet, slightly startling Wesley. Giles began to pace. “I don’t like that. A man’s emotions should be his own. I don’t care to spend eternity under the influence of celestial Valium. And the rest of this! The flat from my youth, the magically appearing snacks, the . . . you! It’s all too pat, too easy. I’ve no intention of spending forever as a doddering pensioner in a perfect little dream of a world.”

Wesley put his tea down and stood as well. He used his body to block Giles’ pacing and placed his hands on the other man's shoulders. “Then don’t. I’ve told you, this is only a possibility. An introductory period. You can choose something else entirely—” 

The bedsit disappeared. Wesley was still clutching Giles' shoulders, but now they were high on a mountaintop, with nothing but frozen white about them and a howling wind that swirled Wesley’s hair. “Such as this!” Wesley shouted to be heard over the gale.

And then they were in a jungle so thick that the sky above wasn’t visible at all. Giant green leaves dripped water onto their heads, and unseen things slithered furtively in the undergrowth. “Or this,” said Wesley, this time in a near-whisper.

“Or this,” he said, and they were in a huge city, one that resembled London but with the proportions and distances skewed, so that St. Paul’s dome was next to St. Pancras’s spires, and the Thames was just a few streets over. Double-decker buses rumbled by and bulky black cabs, and every one of the passersby looked familiar. Somewhere close by, John Bonham’s distinctive drumming was booming and jangling, accompanied by the wails of Jimi Hendricks’ guitar.

A flash and all that was gone. Instead they stood on a rocky plain under a night sky that was lit by three dim moons. “Or this,” mouthed Wesley, his words inaudible due to the lack of atmosphere.

“Or even this,” he said out loud, and they were back in Giles’ bedsit, and their teacups were still waiting for them, still with little tendrils of steam. But now Wesley was closer. Was, in fact, pressed flush against Giles’ body, his lean frame solid and warm, and his arms were wrapped tightly about Giles’ waist. “It’s all your choice,” he whispered in Giles’ ear.

Giles pulled slightly away so he could see the other man’s face. “Haven’t you any say in the matter?”

Wesley smiled. “But I’ve already decided.” And he drew Giles back into his embrace.

There was a click and a dull thud as a record dropped onto the turntable. After a brief moment of static and hiss, the music began to play: _Tales of Brave Ulysses_. Giles smiled against Wesley’s stubbled cheek and decided that a bit of the familiar paired with something new was just what the freshly deceased required.

 _  
~~~fin~~~   
_

 

  



End file.
